BSC #26: Claudia and the Sad Good-bye

Tagline: Claudia thought she'd never have to say good-bye

Claudia has a sad good-bye to make. Her grandmother, Mimi, has just died. Claudia understands that Mimi was sick for a long time, but she's still mad at her grandmother for leaving her. Who will help Claudia with her homework... and share "special tea" with her?

To keep from thinking about Mimi, Claudia spends all her free time painting and baby-sitting. She's even teaching an art class for some of the kids in the neighbourhood.

Claudia knows she has to let go of Mimi sometime. But how do you say good-bye to a special friend... forever?

As you can surmise from the title, Mimi dies in this one. I remember being really shocked when I read it the first time around as a kid. I mean, the title and synopsis gives it away, so I wasn't like, "Whaaaaat?" when I read it in the story. I just remember being shocked when I saw the book and was like, "Mimi dies?? Noooo!!!" In hindsight, it really shouldn't have been a surprise. They foreshadow it a lot in the books leading up to this one. But then again, as a kid, I read them out of order. I knew she was dead in the later ones, but it still surprised me when I saw this one on the shelves at the library, to see that she had died so soon.

But she doesn't die right away. The book starts out with lots of Claudia and Mimi time, with Mimi being even more forgetful and non-sequitur than usual. A few days pass of this, but Claudia doesn't seem any more worried than usual. Then one evening, as they're sitting down for dinner, Mimi collapses and has to be rushed to the hospital.

Mimi spends several days in the hospital, where the doctors run a million tests. However, all the tests come back inconclusive. All they can determine is that whatever's affecting Mimi, it has to do with her blood. But they can't quite figure out what it is yet. Eventually they decide to give Mimi a blood transfusion, and that does the trick. Mimi perks right up and gets to go home.

Of course, Mimi still isn't well, and since the doctors don't know what's wrong with her, she can't be left alone for too long. Claudia's parents take turns taking care of her during the day, but in the afternoons, it's up to Claudia to spend time with Mimi. Claudia soon starts to get frustrated, because Mimi can't communicate well and is confusing her. Claudia snaps at her several times, and then immediately feels bad because she realizes it's not Mimi's fault. It's really sad and hard to read.

Meanwhile, Claudia is also busy giving art classes to some of their charges, which leads to this book's subplot, which I'll get into later. Mary Anne helps Claudia out, and they're having a really good time with the kids, experimenting with paint and eventually doing paper-maché to make puppets. During one of the classes, Mimi starts to come downstairs to the basement (where they were working), and immediately Claudia goes to help her, since she's not supposed to be doing stairs alone anymore. Just as they get to the bottom of the stairs, Mimi collapses. The paramedics are called and Mimi is rushed to the hospital once more.

Since it worked last time, the doctors give Mimi more blood, and again, Mimi seems fine. (She makes a really cute joke about being a vampire, which I freaking loved.) But it's a series of roller-coasters. At first, Mimi is in intense pain, and it scares Claudia's family and confounds the doctors. Later, her body seems to be recovering, but her mind is going faster than ever. She starts making random comments, and telling Claudia and Janine to take things from her room and put them into their rooms. Mimi's in the hospital for several days, and the doctors still can't figure out what is wrong. At one point, Mimi gets upset at the hospital food, and even throws it against the wall, scaring Claudia. But then Mimi has a moment of clarity and tells Claudia, "My Claudia, never believe what other people say. About you. Never unless you believe it, too. I love you." Since the doctors can't figure out what's wrong with Mimi, and since she seemed to be doing better, they decide that she can go home the next day. That night Mimi calls Claudia on the phone, and they talk, before Mimi tells Claudia to get back to her art.

Of course, Mimi never gets to come home, because Claudia is woken up in the middle of the night by her parents. Mimi has just died, and they have to go to the hospital and start arranging things. Claudia's just a whole grab bag of emotions. At first she's in denial, then she's just kind of numb. The girls want to cancel their Club meeting, but Claudia asks them to come over anyways for moral support. Everyone just kinda sits in silence, not knowing what to say or do. Janine joins them too. None of their clients call, out of respect for the family. Their next meeting goes about the same way. Since it's Friday, and Claudia hasn't been to school all week, Mary Anne invites everyone over for an impromptu pizza party. The pizza reminds Kristy of the first time Mimi ever ate pizza, which then prompts everyone to share their favourite Mimi stories. Everyone's briefly cheered up.

The next day is the funeral, for which Stacey and her mom return. Claudia is all numb throughout the funeral, feeling guilty because everyone around her is crying. Claudia wonders why she isn't crying, since she was closer to Mimi than any of them were. After the funeral, everyone awkwardly makes small talk, before the girls start gossiping with Stacey. Essentially, everything except talk about Mimi.

Finally Claudia gets to go back to school, and for once she's glad. She just wants a sense of normalcy. Except when she gets to school, she finds anything but that. The other kids don't know what to say to her. People she normally talks to are avoiding her. People she barely ever talks to come up to her and say empty condolences. All throughout the week, Claudia keeps forgetting that Mimi is dead, only to be reminded of her and have to think about it again.

Things don't get much better. The following week, Mallory tries to bring up a Mimi memory again, and Claudia just shuts her down. Her grades start slipping even more, and Claudia is surprised to find that no one seems to care. Claudia is tired all the time, and can't quite figure out why her grades are so bad, since homework is the only thing she can do right now. She's not in the mood for art, and she's not baby-sitting. So she throws all her energy into attempting homework for a change. She starts getting angry at everyone. At her teachers for not caring, at her parents for not caring... at herself and Mimi too.

Things all come to a head when Janine finally takes it upon herself to start going through Mimi's things. Claudia starts yelling at her, and eventually their parents sit them all down to talk. Claudia tells them how she's so angry at everyone: angry at the doctors for not knowing what's going on, angry at Mimi for giving up, and angry at herself for having not treated Mimi better and causing her to die. Claudia's parents reassure Claudia that it's alright to feel angry, and that she did not cause Mimi to die. Janine then finds a makeshift will that Mimi had written, indicating her month and year when she was going to die. Mimi just knew her time was up.

Slowly but surely, Claudia moves on. She takes some of Mimi's things and helps her family to convert Mimi's room into a guest room.

The subplot in this one Corrie Addison. She's one of the kids in Claudia's art class. Apparently the Club has sat for the Addison's on occasion, but they seem to primarily use other baby-sitters. A lot of them. Because apparently Mr and Mrs Addison don't want to have anything to do with their children. They just shunt them from lesson to lesson and place to place, without being with them at all. They even arrange for the kids to go to an ice show with a baby-sitter! Mrs Addison consistently drops Corrie off before the classes start and usually at least almost an hour late picking her up each time. Eventually Claudia has words with Mrs Addison, and Mrs Addison sees the error of her ways, and decides to start spending more time with her children. Lame.

Random Thoughts:

• This is definitely one of my favourite books in the series.
• This is the one where they first mention the mark on the table that they could never get out. It's from Claudia setting a hot tureen of soup on the table when Mimi suddenly collapses. I have always found this to be one of the saddest things ever.
• I felt so bad for Claudia and Mimi in this one. It's not easy being a 13 year old and having someone you love and look up to suddenly need so much caring. But it also can't be easy for Mimi, who is used to being the caretaker now be so helpless. Now that I'm older (although in no way near Mimi's age haha), I relate to Mimi and know that that will be me one day, and it scares the shit out of me.
• They mention in this one that Claudia was starting to develop a special bond with Corrie, same as the one Stacey has with Charlotte. Except then we never hear of Corrie again. At least, I don't think so. I know there's some deal with her brother Sean becoming an arsonist in one of the mystery books, and it's their house that the family with the abusive father (#117) move into. But I think aside from a few books focused on them, they're never really mentioned again.
• We've got more foreshadowing about Stacey's parents in this one:
• Only Mrs McGill and Stacey come to Mimi's funeral
• Stacey admits that she heard her parents arguing pretty heavily the night before
• Stacey thinks that her parents need a day apart from each other
• They mention that Stacey's mom has always liked Stoneybrook more than her dad did
• There's a nice bit of continuity going on, with Claudia's neighbours still being the Goldmans which is mentioned when they show up to the funeral
• Updates on the Schafer/Spier front: according to Dawn, her mom's not seeing the Trip-Man as often, and according Mary Anne, her father is only exclusively dating Mrs Schafer. It makes me wonder: did Richard ever date anyone other than Mrs Schafer? It seems like we never really heard about him ever dating until he started dating her. Mary Anne doesn't even mention stuff like, "Yeah, she's way better than anyone else my dad has ever dated, and not because she's Dawn's mother either!" or anything like that.
• We get a bit of insight on Kristy when Kristy mentions Corrie getting too attached to Claudia, warning Claudia not to abandon her. Kristy mentions how hard it was when her father left their family. Kristy doesn't talk about it much, but when she does, it's sad.
• Once again, Janine is awesome. When Corrie is left behind at Claudia's for over two hours, Janine can instantly see that something is wrong, and swoops in to distract her. I fucking love Janine.
• Jessi mentions the Civic Centre putting on a production of Swan Lake soon, and since I literally just started reading the next book, that's a nice bit of continuity.